


Not Her

by Befrie08



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Don't worry, F/M, I would never
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-05
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2021-01-23 13:09:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21320701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Befrie08/pseuds/Befrie08
Summary: Carol gets bit while out with Daryl and the group in the woods. Daryl is desperate to save her.
Relationships: Daryl Dixon/Carol Peletier
Kudos: 53





	Not Her

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little story I thought of. Based loosely on mothercherokee's fanart on Instagram.

Carol screamed in pain as she toppled to the forest ground. 

Daryl watched it happen in slow motion. He saw her stab the walker in the head before dropping her knife. She moved her hands to her leg. Her face looked agonized. 

“Carol!” he screamed, his chest constricting. He ran to her side and dropped to the ground. He looked down her body and saw where her hands were. They were bloody and when she shifted them he could see the bite. 

“No,” he gasped as he stared at the wound transfixed. This couldn’t be happening. Not her! 

“Daryl,” she whimpered in a pained voice. There were tears brimming in her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. 

He shook his head. No. He was not going to lose her. It was just a leg. He could save her. 

He quickly set to unbuckling his belt, unattaching his knives as he did, and pulling it free. He vaguely heard the group approaching but he kept his attention on Carol. 

“Daryl, it won’t work,” Carol weakly said. 

“Don’t talk,” he growled at her, harsher than he wanted. 

He got the belt around her leg and tightened it above the bite. She cried out in pain as the belt tightened. He felt a pang at her pain but he needed to be objective. 

“Oh god!” he heard Michonne gasp. 

“You gotta cut here, just above the bite,” he instructed her in a broken voice. It was an unnecessary instruction because they done this before. 

“Daryl,” Michonne trailed off. He looked up at her. She stood with her sword by her side, looking down at Carol mournfully. 

“Come on, we don’t got time!” he shouted at her. Why the hell wasn’t she doing anything?

“She won’t make it,” Michonne reasoned slowly. Daryl narrowed his eyes at her. 

“What?” he spat. Michonne sighed. Tears had begun to glitter in her eyes. 

“We’re too far away from help. She’ll bleed out before we even make it a quarter of the way.” 

He knew she was right, of course, but he couldn’t accept that. There was no way he was losing Carol. No way. 

“We gotta try!” he cried, feeling helpless. He glanced down at Carol who was gritting her teeth at the pain in her leg. He met her eyes and she shook her head at him with a sad look. 

“We don’t even have bandages or anything like it to staunch the blood!” Michonne argued. They had very little supplies with them other than their weapons. 

Fuck this, was all he thought in relation to Michonne’s statement. 

Daryl tore his vest off and tossed it aside quickly before his fingers grappled with the buttons on his shirt. He gave up on the stupid things and just tore it the rest of the way open and removing it. He ignored the gasps he heard. He didn’t give a shit about his stupid scars right now. They could look as much as they wanted. 

“Daryl!” Carol gasped and he looked down at her. She was giving him a tearful, disbelieving look. She knew the weight he carried on his back better than most. It didn’t matter though. He could live with being embarrassed about people seeing his shame. He couldn’t live with losing her. 

He looked back at Michonne with a challenging look. She snapped her eyes back to his. She had been staring at his back, aghast, never having seen him without his shirt before. She sighed again before she shrugged out of her jacket, tossing it to him. 

“Bring me your jackets, shirts, anything you can spare!” she barked to their group, who set about stripping off what they could. 

The clothing piled up beside Carol on the ground and Daryl felt his hope renew. He leaned down to Carol, cupping her face, making her look at him. Her gaze was a little unfocussed. 

“Hey, you’re gonna be fine, okay?” 

“Daryl…”she tried but he shook his head. 

“Please! I need you to believe!” he begged her, feeling tears spilling from his eyes. She gave him a sad smile before she nodded tiredly. 

“You ready?” he asked Michonne. She had her sword at the ready and settled it above where she would need to slice. 

“On your count,” she replied in a strong voice. Her tears had ebbed some but her cheeks were wet. 

Daryl nodded and pulled back from Carol. He regarded her for a moment. God, this is gonna hurt her so bad! 

“I’m sorry,” he murmured to her. She just nodded at him and smiled, though it was strained. 

“Alright. One,” he counted, his heart beating so loud in his head. 

“Two,” his voice croaked and Carol reached over and squeezed his hand. 

“Three” was out of his mouth and Michonne’s sword was high in the air ready to come down when another voice rang out. 

“Wait!” someone shouted. 

Michonne froze, her sword stopping its downward strike. Daryl bristled angrily. The longer they took, the less likely this was to work. 

“We don’t got fucking time!” he growled at whoever had spoken.

“No, listen this is important. You need to see this!” they said. 

Michonne frowned and looked down and Daryl and Carol before she moved. She marched over to where the person, whom Daryl still hadn’t identified, had called from. He watched her go, feeling his hope dying. 

“Michonne!” he screamed at her. This was wasting time they didn’t have. The woman, spared him a backward glance but kept going. 

He needed to find another weapon. His knives would be useless cutting through her leg. He’d probably do more damage than good with those. He tried to get up but his hand was tugged. 

“Please don’t leave me,” Carol begged with drooping eyes. His stance soften and he resettled himself. He couldn’t leave her alone. Not when she looked so scared. 

“I’m not going nowhere,” he promised her. 

“Daryl!” Michonne cried. He looked over to her and his heart stopped. She held up in her hand a mask. 

His mind reeled. He blinked. Did he imagine it? No, there it was, still clutched in Michonne’s hand. Her mouth spread in a grin. A whisperer, not a walker. 

“Oh, god!” he sobbed, barely recognising the sound. He felt dizzy. 

“What is it?” Carol asked with confusion. He stared down at her. He studied her lovely skin and her deep eyes. Things he dreaded he would never see again only moments ago. He couldn’t help himself from tugging her half up from the ground against him. She squeaked but didn’t protest. She settled her hands over his back, rubbing gently. He felt her brushing over the raised bits of skin of his scars and he shivered. He held her tighter and buried his face in her neck. 

“Daryl?” she questioned, sounding concerned. Of course she would be concerned for him when she thought she might be dying. He huffed a laugh against her and pulled back. She looked alarmed. 

“You’re alright!” he grinned at her as he spoke. She frowned, not understanding. 

“What?” 

“It was a whisperer not a walker!” he explained, still not believing the good fortune. Her mouth hung open in surprise. 

“A Whisperer?” she asked sounding unsure. He nodded eagerly. 

“Luke saw the stitching when he was about to take his shirt off,” came a voice to their left and they both jumped. Michonne stood there holding the mask still. She was still grinning. 

Carol let out a half sob, half laugh and pulled Daryl back into her arms again. He smiled into her hair. 

“Ow!” Carol cried then as she shifted. Daryl pulled away from her to look down at her leg. 

“Right, you’re still hurt,” he muttered sheepishly. He’d been so distracted by the momentous news that she wasn’t going to die. 

“Here. We can bind it with this,” Carol said as she shrugged off her shirt. She had on a tank top underneath. She handed her shirt to Daryl. 

“You’ll get cold,” he pointed out stupidly. She smirked at him. 

“I’ll live.” 

Daryl scoffed but set about tearing her shirt and binding her leg. When he was done, he felt the breeze blowing on his bare skin and he blushed. He had almost forgotten he was shirtless. He grabbed his shirt from the pile of clothes they had made and pulled it on. It wouldn’t do up but it would cover his back at least. He redonned his vest and helped Carol to her feet. 

The blood loss made her a bit woozy so she wasn’t very steady on her feet. He urged her to lean on him and let him take her weight. The rest of the group had started to head off towards home, leaving them to follow. 

“I gotta say, if I knew it would get you to take off your shirt, I would have got bitten a long time ago,” Carol quipped in a tired voice. 

“Stop,” he groaned at her. She giggled.


End file.
